Method of making electrical lugs.



I No. 860,889. PATENTED JULY 23, '1907.=

I G. A. TOWER. METHOD OF MAKING BLEGTRIGAL LUGS.

APPLICATION FILED BEPT.13, 1808 WITNESSES: [NVENTOR I B Y I V Attorneys,

I ITNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE. f

GEORGE 'ARMS TOWER, OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.

METHOD OF MAKIliT'G ELECTRICAL LUGS'.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented July as, 1907.-

' Application flledSeptember 13.1908. Serial No. 834,480;

To, all whom it may concern: p

Be it known that I, GEORGE Arms TowER, a citizen of the United States of America, and a resident of Richmond, county of Henrico, State of Virginia, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods of Making Electrical Lugs, of which the following is a full and clear-specification, reference being had to the accompanying drawing, in which- Figures land 2 are perspective views of the completed lug, showing a preferred form; Fig. 3 avertical longitudinal section thereof taken centrally through tating against the conductive capacityof the the longitudinal seam or joint running along the under side of the lug; Fig. 4 a vertical transverse section taken through the tail piece of the lug; Fig. 5 a perspective view showing the lug partly formed; and Fig. 6 a plan view of the preferred form of blank out of which the lug is bent up. v

The object of this invention is'to provide a method of making a strong and simple terminal which shall materially cheapen the cost of manufacture without milia more fully hereinafter set forth. 7

In manufacturing the lug a flat sheet A of copper is employed, this sheet being approximately rectangular in shape except that its forward edge is provided with a central rounded swell or projection a. The first operation is to curl the plate into a tube, the two side edges abutting closely in contact so as to'close the tube along its under side. Then therear end of the tube is flattened down to make a fiat tail piece d at one end and leave the tube the same shape and diameter at its forward end to form the wire-receiving barrel c. The flattening of therear end of the tube brings the opposite interior walls of the tube closely together without opening the. seam along the under side of the lug, thus forming a solid tail piece double the thickness of the wall of the barrel or socket c. A hole e is formed in the tail piece for the passage of the fastening bolt or screw.

The tail piece is so formed that its under side is in the same plane with'the under side of the socket, and in flattening down the tube the metal along the upper part of the wall of the socket is drawn rearwardly an'd downwardly to avoid thinning or rupturing the rounded rear end-wall of the socket, it being the function of the Wave-like extension a at the front end of thesheet to supply this metal and thus avoid leaving the front edge of the completed lug in a distorted shape. Experi ment has readily determined the amount of metal nec- .essary in the extension a to leave the front edge of the socket straight and at right angles to the under -surface thereof, so thatsubsequent sawing off or otherwise fin- I have-heretofore obtained a patent (No. 783333- February 21, 1 905) for a sheet metal wire terminal.

In patented lug it has been found in making these lugs up commercially workmen through carelessness do not always close the wings down hard enough to close the transverse seams, sothat if the lug were used the solder would run out through/these open seams. This entails considerable loss through cutting out defective lugs. In my present construction I have dispensed with these transverse slots and now employ but a singleseam running along the under side of the lug which seam caribe tightly closed without difliculty. Furthermore, it is not necessary to have as thick nietal for the wall of the barrel as is necessaryin the tail piecc asthe socket becomes a solid mass with the end of the wire inserted therein when the solder is poured in,

smaller sized'lugs this has not been an objection as the necessary metal for mechanical strength of barrel provides ample conductivity for the tail but in the larger sizes there is'considerable waste of metal due to giving an unnecessarily heavy wallto the barrel in order to obtain suflicient thickness for the tail. In this new lug I can so proportion the-metal used in making the lug as to have just suflicient metal for both the tail and the barrel. 7 I am aware of Patent No. 631,970 dated August 29, 1899, to F. Schwedtmann, in which 2, lug is shown and described which is constructed of a length of seamless tubing flattened at one end to form a double-thickness tail piece which liesin a plane coinciding with the vcenter of the socket or barrel section. The objection to this lug is that it is manufactured from seamless tubing which ren'ders it much more expensive than my lug which is constructed entirelyof sheet metal. Another objection to this Schwedtmann, lug is that it-is impossible to vary the relative size of barrel to the width of tail piece, whereas with my new lug and process I can varywithinreasonable limits the relative size I 9 5 of barrel to tail-piece. Again the drawing back of the metal which occurs when the tube is flattened will distort the front edge of the socket and require that 'it be filed or sawed off if a nice-looking lug is to be provided. 7

Furthermore, it is very difiicult to obtain tubing exactly the dimension to produce'a tail of any desired width, it being required that the tails of these lugs shall necessarily be of the same width asthe piece to which The methodherein described of constructing an electrical lug consisting in employing a sheet of metal approximately rectangular in shape except that the center the socket, the metal thus drawn down being drawn rear- 10 portion of its forward edge is extended forwardly into wardly from the upper part of the tube so as to draw in a rounded swell, curling'this sheet longitudinally until the forwardly extending rounded swell.

the opposite side edges of the plate abut against each other I In testimony whereof I hereunto atfix my signature in and thus form a tube, and then I-lattenimg the rear end of the presence oftwo Witnesses this 4th day of Sept, 1906. the tube to form a tail-piece lying in approximately the GEORGE ARMS TOWER. same plane as the under side of the tube, thus flattening Witnesses: 4 the tube serving to draw down the metal from the upper JULIEN BURFoRD, J'r., wall of the tube sufliciently to close the rear end wall of A. C. DENOON. 

